


ten ways to say "i love you"

by braedens



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cuddling & Snuggling, Declarations Of Love, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Tumblr Prompt, honestly fuck canon, this is where canon came to die, two idiots in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 18:37:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17188247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braedens/pseuds/braedens
Summary: “So you’re making housecalls now?”“Don’t be a dick,” Derek rolls his eyes.It feels like an eternity, the time they spend standing there, just looking at each other. Stiles feels bold, though, so he pushes off where he’s rested against the threshold and puts his arms out, enveloping Derek in a hug. It takes Derek a second, before Stiles feels his hands splayed on his back.I’m scared,Stiles wants to stay.Please stay. Don’t go. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.But Stiles has battled his demons, still is. And he knows if he was given the chance to skip town, he would have taken it. So instead, he says, “Be safe.”Some things are easier done than said.





	ten ways to say "i love you"

**Author's Note:**

> [based on this prompt](https://foundlingsuggestion.tumblr.com/post/165343481938/ten-ways-to-say-i-love-you-straightforward-soft)

_**1\. Through laughter, over a chorus of voices, knowing it’ll strike home anyway. It’s meant for everyone here, after all.** _

There are so few moments in their lives where there is peace. Not in Beacon Hills. So, the disheveled group of teens don’t waste a second to enjoy the calm and the storm, because even when all hell breaks loose, even when the world is ending and it seems like Death stand ominously over them all, they have each other. And, that’s enough.

Their laughter and joy fills every crevice of Derek’s loft, movie abandoned for riffing and quips at each other. Beacon Hills is unruffled, if only for a moment, their teen protectors clustered together and damnit, it makes Stiles just a little bit emotional. This is his family, supernatural and all.   
  
“God, I love you guys,” he barks, and a collections of laughter and cooing follow as he looks around the room, and he finds his eyes stop at Derek, for a small moment.

It’s quick, but Derek meets his eyes, and he thinks they share a look. Something is exchanged there, but he isn’t quite sure what, but he knows that it settles him for the better because of it.

 

**_ 2\. Slipped under your tongue, twisted into something else. “I trust you,” maybe. Trust them to figure it out. _ **

Stiles gets himself into more trouble than any human should desire in their line of work, this Derek knows. He’s eighteen, but when he squares his shoulders and furrows his brows, Derek can visibly see the years that this life has put on him. He wonders what Stiles would be like if he hadn’t brought Peter into their lives, to Beacon Hills. Would they have met under different circumstances? Would they have met at all?

They’re crouched behind some crates at the old canning factory outside of town, and Derek wonders how many times they’ve been in this situation before. Same story, different venue.

The omega pack that seems hell bent on ruining their lives this week argue farther into the factory. If he listens closely, he can hear Scott and Isaac on the upper level. From outside, he hears the click of Allison’s bow notch into place.

“I’ll distract them,” Stiles moves to get up, but Derek brandishes an arm out to stop him, and he already knows the look Stiles is giving him.

Usually, Stiles falls back. So, when Derek feels Stiles push his arm away, he stares at him bewildered, but the eyes he’s met with are not eyes he’s looked into before. They speak to him clearly, more sure. They say  _I am no longer a child_. They say  _do not mistake my vigor for weakness_.

They say  _trust me_.

So he does.

He nods his head once, and Derek is sure Stiles knows what he’s trying to say, even if Derek isn’t entirely sure himself. But, he can’t stop the fumble of his tongue as they carved a cavern for Stiles to burrow into his chest, somewhere for him to come back to. Not home, not yet. But a soft place to land.

“I trust you,” he says.

 

**_ 3\. Instead of “thank you” or “see you soon” or “drive safe.” Because no matter what you say it’ll mean the same thing. _ **

Derek has to leave. There’s nothing left for him here. Or at least, nothing worth more than Cora. Beacon Hills is a graveyard of hollow dreams and promises of love that never stayed, and Derek has given this town far more than it deserves. So, he gets it. Frankly, he’s surprised Derek stayed as long as he did in the first place.

So when he hears a soft knock on his front door, the last person he expects to see is Derek.

“Hi,” he blinks.

“Hi.”

He takes note of Derek’s car in his driveway, still running and one Cora Hale in the passenger seat. So he makes no move to let him in. He knows this will be quick. Everything with Derek usually is.

“I, uh,” Derek starts, and he shifts his eyes anywhere to Stiles, and no. Fuck that. If this is the last time he’ll see Derek, he deserves eye contact. So, Stiles does that annoying movement where he maneuvers his head until Derek has no choice to look at him.

Derek breathes, but this time he’s looking at Stiles. “I just wanted to say goodbye.”

“So you’re making housecalls now?”

“Don’t be a dick,” Derek rolls his eyes.

It feels like eternity, the time they spend standing there, just looking at each other. Stiles feels bold, though, so he pushes off where he’s rested against the threshold and puts his arms out, enveloping Derek in a hug. It takes Derek a second, before Stiles feels his hands splayed on his back.

 _I’m scared_ , Stiles wants to stay.  _Please stay. Don’t go. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you._  But Stiles has battled his demons, still is. And he knows if he was given the chance to skip town, he would have taken it. So instead, he says, “Be safe.”

Somehow, he thinks Derek knows what he’s trying to say, how he feels, because Derek tightens his hold on him just slightly, an apology and a blessing all wrapped in just one press.

Derek leaves, and Beacon Hills is still and serene in a way no one can comprehend, and Stiles sleeps all through the night for the first time in a while.

 

**_ 4\. Casually, as if you don’t mean it. Trying like hell not to mean it. _ **

Of course they find their way back to each other.

Stiles is twenty-two, and Derek is living in New York. It’s been a year since Derek sent him a text for the first time in three years since he left, and suddenly it’s like they are ribbons, curved around each other in a symphony. Stiles gets accepted to NYU for graduate school, and Derek offers to let Stiles live with him. He’s been on his own far too long, he tells himself. It’ll be nice to have someone other than Cora around.

He feels nervous the day Stiles moves in. Most of his stuff has already been mailed to his condo, and Derek took the liberty of sorting it all in the spare bedroom. He’s a nervous wreck- an hour in the fragrance aisle at the Whole Foods trying to decide what air freshener Stiles would like is what he has to show for it.

He can hear Stiles in the lobby, his humming an echo in his ears and suddenly he’s thankful Stiles isn’t a werewolf, because he’s pretty sure you could hear his heart beat like a bongo from across the city.

And then the door opens, and it smells like lemongrass and orange and hand sanitizer and the smile on Stiles’ face is how warmth feels, like the first step into the sun on your chilly skin.

But Stiles eyes dart around his apartment, his mouth wide open. “You live here? Are you fucking  _kidding_  me?”

“Well, you live here too, now.”

And Stiles just stares at him with the same gobsmacked expression, but he treks to him with arms wide open. “Dude, I fucking love you!”

Derek laughs, it’s all he can do in that moment when Stiles pulls away too quickly, already distracted by his self-guided tour of the place.

 _I love you too_ , Derek thinks to himself,  _just maybe not the same way you do._

 

**_ 5\. Wrapped up in a question. “How’s your day been, have you eaten, you know you can tell me anything, right?” You know you can tell them anything. Right? _ **

Stiles doesn’t spend much time in the apartment. Between work and grad school, he doesn’t make it back home until late into the night, if he even makes it back home at all.

On Laura’s birthday, Cora has already moved to Spain, so Derek is alone. Which is for the better, really. He loves Cora, but he learned quickly that they both had become so used to mourning on their own. But still, knowing she isn’t near him still makes it harder.

He takes the day off, can’t imagine being able to focus on anything besides the flicker of his eyes, from their normal emerald to glowing gold. And he stays in bed, no energy to face a day that only reminds him of the decisions he’s made and their consequences.

It’s closer to one in the afternoon when he hears their front door open and close, the familiar sound of Stiles strikes him as odd during this time of day. A soft tap at his bedroom door, and before he can tell him to leave, Stiles is already all the way in. Derek watches him as he looks around the room before his eyes fall back to him, and Derek suddenly feels too vulnerable and raw.

“What are you doing home?” Derek voice cracks, the first time he’s spoken all day. Stiles steps closer to the bed.

“I got off early,” Stiles lies. He can hear it in his heartbeat, but somehow he thinks Stiles meant for him to know that. “Have you eaten today?”  
  
“Not hungry.”

Stiles just nods, puckering his lips. And then, to Derek’s surprise, he’s up by Derek’s bed, pulling back the comforter and climbing into his bed and pushing himself beside Derek. At this close, Derek can smell old leather and paper on Stiles. It’s comforting, reminds him of his parent’s old library.

“C’mere,” Stiles mumbles, and Derek can’t help it, he immediately moves to burrow into Stiles’ arms, burying his face in his chest and breathes in deeply. He feels a tension release from his shoulders and they just lie there, in silence, Stiles stroking the hair at the nape of his neck as Derek mirrors his breaths to the rise and fall of Stiles’ chest. It’s a peace he’s never known, or at least can’t remember.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Stiles says under hushed tones, hours later when they’re tucked under the comforter.

It’s something Derek knows more than anything. Something he’s practiced for years, the way he confides in Stiles, lets him into his space and Stiles never asking him to break down his walls, but rather provide him a ladder.

So, as moonlight spills into his room, he does. He tells him everything. Everything and anything he can form into coherent words. He tells him about Laura. About his parents. And life before pain. About fears, faux pas. He makes perfect sense and no sense at all as they exchange soft conversations just for them. For the first time in what feels like so long, he lets someone listen. Because he knows Stiles will hear him.

 

**_ 6\. Under your breath while the whole house sleeps, just before you have to leave for the day. More for yourself than for them. _ **

It’s the final stretch for Stiles. He just has one more month left before he sits for the bar, and the studying has utterly destroyed him. Graduation is in his reach, but not without copious amounts of Red Bull and bribing the librarian to let him stay past hours.

He finds himself coming home later and later, taking his naps on the subway and treking himself up to their apartment. When he walks in, it’s still- the clock on the stove reads almost four in the morning, and the light above the island is on. Derek never leaves it on.

On the counter is a single plate, covered in tin foil. There’s a sticky not on the counter, and Stiles can already tell the neat handwriting belongs to Derek.

_Figured you’d be hungry. Tired, went to bed_

Stiles smiles to himself, rereading the note. Under the foil is a slice of lasagna and mixed roasted vegetables, so he does what any sane person would do in the middle of the night- grabs a fork from a drawer and sits at the island.

“God, I am so in love with you,” he mumbles to himself so softly, and digs in.

In Derek’s room, awaken long ago from the sound of the door, he hitches his breath.

 

**_ 7\. With a hand on their shoulder, a song on your lips, or a carton of their favorite ice cream in the freezer. _ **

“Who’s ice cream is this?” Stiles asks, freezer door swung open, and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Americone Dream in his hands. Derek barely looks up from the book in his hand from the sofa. It’s mid July, and Stiles has spent want too much free time now that he’s passed the bar and graduated from NYU. And his free time usually included enjoying all the treats he never got to have during the school year.

“It’s yours,” Derek says, eyes quickly moving back to his book.

“I didn’t buy it?”

“I bought it,” he says simply.

“You,” Stiles says slowly, “you bought me ice cream?” He’s looking between the ice cream and Derek, who’s paying no attention to him. It’s his favorite flavor.

Derek stays silent, as if to say  _‘Yes, you idiot’_.

Stiles just keeps staring at the carton in his hand. “Huh.”

 

**_8\. Over a nervous smile, biting back the just-this-side-of-desperate hope they’ll say it back._ **

When they kiss for the first time, it’s entirely wrong.

They’re arguing about rock albums, and Stiles has formed a three-pronged thesis in his head on why Derek is ridiculous for putting Muse above Queen in his list. And it just happens.

Derek’s not sure he believed it was the right time. Hell, if you asked him he’d say there was never a right time. He leans in to kiss Stiles, and when their lips meet, he has no regret. He forgets that there was no build up to this- they’re not dating, let alone have they even remotely talked about their feelings. He feels the corners of his lips tug upward and his mind races to the thought that this is it. Maybe this is when they’ll stop doing figure eights around each other and come in the middle.

But then Stiles pulls away.

It’s abrupt, Derek feels. And they just look at each other in silence.

“Is that your way of trying to get out of this debate?” Stiles deflects. “Because I’m trying to understand why you really would think I Want To Break Free doesn’t absolutely kill.”

Stiles shifts back into the sofa, continuing his argument, and Derek thinks maybe this is for the best. He doesn’t want to lose Stiles as a friend, so if he’s willing to pretend this never happened, so be it. He missed his chance. He misses a lot of chances, he thinks.

Later, when Stiles closes his bedroom door behind him, he finally exhales on a breath he feels like he’s been keeping inside him forever. Briefly, he touches his lips. For a moment, he considers going back outside to where he hears Derek cleaning up, and doing something. Anything. Figures he’ll know what it is when he gets to him.

Instead, he flips his light switch.

 

_** 9\. Straightforward. Soft and heavy, like morning before the coffee’s started brewing. Like that’s all there is to say. ** _

It is no special day. It’s just not.

It’s early in the morning, Stiles packing his briefcase for work, Derek making coffee in the kitchen. They’ve fallen into routine now that Stiles is working at a firm, in sync with their actions and movements that it isn’t until right now, on some ordinary day in the middle of the week, that Stiles feels overwhelmed by the feeling of content.

“I love you,” Stiles breathes out, wide eyed and mouth ajar, the sides of his vision blurring because Derek is the only center of focus he seems to be able to land on. “And I’m not sorry about it.”

Of course he’s not. He’s never been so sure and so confident about a fact in his life, and Stiles is one to endure copious amounts of research to prove his theories. But this, this is no theory. This need not analyzation. He is sure.

 

**_ 10\. With a soft sigh. Past exhaustion and frustration and despair, like it’s the only good thing left. Sometimes it is. _ **

It’s only been a week since the night of their kiss, and nothing’s really changed since then. If he’s being honest, Derek forgot about it. Frankly, he was content with erasing it from his memory.

He’s making coffee, wondering to himself if he should go to the gym or finally drop off the boxes for Goodwill he’s had in his room for a few weeks, when he’s blindsided.

“I love you,” Stiles says. Like, just announces, and for a second Derek’s having an out-of-body experience where he’s wondering if it wasn’t directed to him.

But, he’s the only one there. Coffee pot hovering over Stiles’ travel mug that he was filling up for him. Cream, two sugars. How he always takes it.

“And I’m not sorry about it.”

Derek shakes his head, starstruck and wondering if this is some fever dream he’s experiencing.

“You don’t have to be sorry about it.”

He places the mug and pot down and walks around the island where Stiles is just standing there, holding the strap to the bag around his shoulder so tight. Derek can’t help but remember when Stiles was a teenager, throwing caution to the wind any chance he could, and all he asked from Derek in return was trust. Love, really.

“I’m just so tired of dancing around it. I know-” he pauses, collecting his thoughts. “I know I don’t make it easy, I know I have an issue with trust and second guessing literally everything but I just, I want you to know.” His hands flail as he talks, and he furrows his brows that feels all too familiar to Derek. “That I love you,” he adds, as if Derek didn’t understand.

He’s not a man of many words, Derek, but he knows the weight they have. He knows that there probably aren’t enough words in the human language that are comparable to the weight of the feelings he has for Stiles. Because to him, this isn’t their first declaration of love. They’ve said it every day to each other, without words. In simple gestures. In bickering arguments. In chores done when the other can’t find the time. In passing brushes of skin. In good (and bad) cooking.

But this, right now, is probably Derek’s favorite. Unrushed and outright.

“Stiles,” he breathes out, taking a tedious step towards him. “Loving you has been the easiest fucking thing I’ve ever done.”

Stiles doesn’t even hesitate crashing into him, hands cradling Derek’s face and kissing him restlessly, like he was given permission. And Derek feels all the more comfortable snaking his arms around him until he’s pressing Stiles closer to him, so much more closer, letting his bag fall from his shoulder onto the ground. With Derek in his arms, he thinks,  _Fuck work. Fuck New York._  Fuck the entire world and universe for all he cares.

Some things are just more important.

**Author's Note:**

> [i write on tumblr too](http://braedens.tumblr.com/)


End file.
